Can you marry your relation?

Editor’s note: As Creation magazine has been continuously published since 1978, we
are publishing some of the articles from the archives for historical interest, such as this. For teaching and
sharing purposes, readers are advised to supplement these historic articles with more up-to-date ones available by searching creation.com.

And 12 other questions to test your skills at answering questions on creation/evolution and Genesis.

by Ken Ham

Before looking at the answer key and explanations, quickly read through the following
13 test questions and choose the best answer for each.

1. Can you marry your
relation?

a. Yes
b. No
c. Probably
d. Only after counseling

2. Did kangaroos live in the Middle East?

a. Yes
b. No
c. They live only in Australia
d. We can’t know for sure

3. Which of the following best illustrates a prehistoric animal?

a. Alligator
b. Mammoth
c. Brachiosaurus
d. None of the above

4. Has God told us when He made Tyrannosaurus rex?

a. Yes
b. No
c. We can’t know for sure
d. Only science has the correct answer

5. Tyrannosaurus rex had teeth up to 15 centimetres (six inches) long.
How would this dinosaur originally have been described?

a. As a plant-eater
b. As a meat-eater
c. As a scavenger
d. As a plant and meat-eater

6. Where was the Garden of Eden located?

a. Australia
b. America
c. In the area around the present Tigris and Euphrates rivers
d. We can’t know

7. Which statement is most accurate?

a. The Bible contains the Word of God
b. The Bible is the Word of Men
c. The Bible contains the Word of Men
d. The Bible is the Word of God
e. The Bible becomes the Word of God as you read it

8. Creation scientists and evolutionary scientists:

a. Use the same evidence but different presuppositions
b. Use different presuppositions and different evidence
c. Use only evidence and no presuppositions
d. Use only presuppositions and no evidence
e. None of the above

9. Most theologians who do not take Genesis literally:

a. Obtain their ideas from the Bible itself
b. Are interpreting Genesis consistently
c. Are influenced by ideas outside the Bible
d. None of the above

a. Read the book of Genesis
b. Believe the main parts of Genesis
c. Believe and understand the book of Genesis
d. Believe those parts of Genesis quoted in the New Testament

11. Darwinian (microbe to man) evolution is:

a. A belief
b. A religion
c. Not observable or testable
d. All of the above.
e. None of the above

12. The book of Genesis is:

a. The foundation of all major Christian doctrines
b. Historical narrative
c. The most quoted from or referred to book in the entire Bible
d. All of the above
e. None of the above

13. The meaning of sin is dependent on:

a. A literal garden
b. A literal serpent, fruit, and Adam
c. A literal rebellion
d. All of the above
e. None of the above

Answer key

1. a

2. a

3. d

4. a

5. a

6. d

7. d

8. a

9. c

10. c

11. d

12. d

13. d

The purpose of this test is to actually teach the person involved to think in a
particular way.

From my experience, I have found that all of us, myself included, have been ‘secularized’
to one degree or another. You see, there are in essence only two worldviews: The
Christian worldview and the secular worldview.

By ‘Christian worldview’, I mean that all of the thinking of a person
in every area starts with the Word of God (the Bible) as the foundation for their
thinking.

By ‘secular worldview’, I mean that all of the thinking of a person
starts from totally human sources.

‘De-secularizing’ our thinking

By Christians being ‘secularized’, I mean that they have taken ideas
from outside the Bible, based on totally human sources only, and imposed these ideas
upon Scripture. For instance, consider question 5. When I ask this question in churches,
most people give ‘b’ as the answer. Because they’ve been indoctrinated
by secular books and television programs etc., they don’t really read the
question carefully and note the word ‘originally’ —they just automatically
think of Tyrannosaurus as a savage meat-eater.

I then ask people to read
Genesis 1:29-30, where we’re told that all the animals and Adam and
Eve were (originally) vegetarian before sin. I then explain how important this is,
because if animals were eating each other before Adam sinned, then death was not
the penalty for sin as the Bible clearly tells us.

In other words, I’m trying to get Christians to always think in terms of biblical
history being the foundation of our thinking—that the Bible is not just an
interesting religious book about salvation for mankind—but that it connects
to the rocks, dirt, living things, death, stars, water, fossils, time, beginning,
immortality, etc. We thus need to ‘de-secularize’ our thinking.

Recognizing liberal terms

Another purpose of this test is to point out something my father showed me many
years ago. Certain terminology may sound right, but liberal theologians use these
terms to mean something other than what we think. Once we understand this, we can
‘smell’ liberal theology very quickly. For instance, consider question
7. I have found that many Christians answer this by selecting ‘a’. While
this is correct in a sense, the point is that liberal theologians use this term
to mean that the Bible also ‘contains’ the word of men—meaning
that these sections are fallible. The statement of faith for a large denomination
in Australia has this sort of statement to allow liberal interpretations of Scripture.
Answer ‘d’ for question 7 fits with Paul’s statement in
1 Thessalonians 2:13—and when stated this way helps clarify the real
position a person holds on the inspiration of Scripture.

Use to teach

You can use this test with teenagers and adults as the basis of a Bible study on
Genesis. After they complete the test—go through each of the answers in detail.
By doing this, you will be ‘de-secularizing’ their thinking, teaching
them the importance of the book of Genesis, giving them an understanding of what
it means that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and helping them build a consistent
Christian worldview.

Explanations

Question 1:

If your wife or husband wasn’t related to you before you married her or him—you
didn’t marry a human!

The point is, every human is related because we are all descendants of one man and
one woman (1
Corinthians 15:45;
Genesis 3:20;
Genesis 5:4;
Acts 26). The reason we can be saved is because Jesus became
our relation to die for His relations (this is why He is called the ‘last
Adam’—God provided another ‘Adam’ to pay the penalty for
sin). Now we don’t marry someone closely related to us today because of the
problems with our genes resulting from the curse. This is why it’s so important
to be able to answer the question,
Where did Cain get his wife?

Question 2:

This question was answered in detail in
Creation magazine, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 16–18. When we understand the
event of the Flood, and that all the kinds of land animals were carried on the Ark,
and that the Ark landed in what we call the Middle East—then we can definitively
answer this question!

Question 3:

Usually when we think of ‘prehistoric’ animals, we think of those that the evolutionists
teach did not live beside man—like dinosaurs. This term usually also means ‘before
recorded history’. However, the Bible records history from when it began (Genesis
1:1). We are also told that all of the land animals were made on day six
alongside Adam and Eve.

Question 4:

It’s surprising how many people answer ‘b’ (no) to this question.
Because people have been so indoctrinated by evolutionists, even many Christians
believe that animals we now call dinosaurs can’t be mentioned in the Bible.
However, if God made all the land animals on day six, and Tyrannosaurus rex was
a land animal, then obviously God told us when he made Tyrannosaurus—day six!
(See also chapter 19,
on dinosaurs, in The Creation Answers Book.)

Question 5:

This is covered above.

Question 6:

This question was also answered in detail in Creation magazine (Vol. 18
No. 2, pp. 16–18, March–May 1996). Because the Flood of Noah’s
day so destroyed the earth—we wouldn’t have a clue where the Garden
of Eden was located. The present Tigris and Euphrates rivers are sitting on thousands
of feet of sedimentary rock containing billions of dead things—fossils. The
Garden of Eden could not have been on top of dead and diseased animal remains—death
was the penalty for sin. Obviously Noah used names he was familiar with when he
landed in this area after the Flood.

Question 7:

This was covered above.

Question 8:

Many people have been trained wrongly to think that scientists start with evidence
only to develop their theories. Actually, everyone has presuppositions (or beliefs)
that determine how they look at evidence.

Creationists and evolutionists do not have different evidence—they have the
same world—they have the same ‘facts’—they interpret the
facts differently because they have different presuppositions.

For instance, a Christian who starts with the Bible understanding that no death
of animals or humans existed before the fall of man, and that the world was judged
by a global Flood, will interpret the evidence of the Grand Canyon layers (that
contain billions lions of dead things) differently to an evolutionist who believes
that millions of years of death occurred before man evolved. For more detailed information
on this, I refer you to the video ‘Creation: Facts and Bias’ in the
Answers in Genesis video series. [Ed: The newer DVD Creation: Why it matters discusses the role of presuppositions
in interpreting data]

Question 9:

It is true that many church leaders today do not believe that God created in six
literal days, and do not accept that the earth is only thousands of years old. However,
when you read their writings or speak to them, invariably you find the reason for
these beliefs comes from ‘outside’ the Bible—they have accepted
the evolutionary teaching of billions of years for earth’s history. Nowhere
in the Bible would you ever get the idea of billions of years! For further information
on this, read the Creation magazine article (Vol. 18 No. 3,
pp. 38–41, June–August 1996), and also The Creation Answers Book, chapter
2, for discussion on the days of creation.

Question 10:

Sadly, most Christians do not understand that ultimately, directly or indirectly,
all Christian doctrine is founded in the book of Genesis. Thus, to understand the
meaning of doctrine, one has to understand and believe the book of Genesis. For
a detailed discussion on this topic, I refer you to the book The Lie: Evolution, by Ken Ham, and The Genesis Record, by Dr Henry Morris.

Question 11:

Many people don’t understand that real ‘science’ involves using
your five senses in the present. This is why we could develop our technology to
build aircraft, computers, space shuttles, and so on. However, when dealing with
the past—scientists don’t have the past. Evolution is not science in
the sense of being observable, testable, repeatable, etc. What human observers witnessed
reptiles turning into birds, or life beginning in a primeval soup millions of years
ago? None did, of course. Because what you believe about where you came from affects
your whole worldview—evolution can be called a religion. For instance, American
astronomer and author Carl Sagan uses evolution to try to justify why women can
abort babies! For a more detailed discussion, I refer you to The Lie: Evolution.

Question 12:

See question 10 above.

Question 13:

See question 10 above. Sin can only be defined as ‘rebellion’, if there
was a literal rebellion in a literal garden. If Genesis was just myth or allegory,
then sin could be defined any way anyone wanted to. In other words, we would determine
the meaning according to how we saw the allegory or myth. I also refer you to the
article in Creation magazine (Vol. 16 No. 4, p. 30, September–November
1994).

The more you can get Christians to think foundationally, building their thinking
on the Bible, the more they’ll be able to defend their faith and teach their
children to have a solid foundation that will not break up under the onslaughts
of the evolutionary humanistic teaching that permeates our culture.

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